The present application relates to semiconductor technology, and more particularly to forming optical coatings on optical components that are monolithically integrated on a single semiconductor substrate in a wafer scale process.
High-speed, low-chirp, low power consumption semiconductor lasers and modulators are important components for the next generation of optical networks. Monolithic integration of modulators with lasers on a single integrated chip has been shown to increase the modulation speed and reduce the laser chirp and noise. Different types of optical coating are needed to reduce the optical loss of optical components in the monolithically integrated device. For example, the modulator typically requires an anti-reflection coating so that light emitted from the laser can be coupled effectively into the modulator, while the laser typically requires a high reflection coating on the laser non-output facet so that light incident on the non-output facet can be reflected back into the laser. In the prior art, the fabrication of different types of optical coatings on optical components are for a single row of devices, and thus are not compatible with the monolithic integration scheme in a wafer scale process. As such, there remains a need for a method that allows selectively depositing different types of optical coatings on monolithically integrated optical components in a wafer scale process.